You Could Be Mine
by lachlanrose
Summary: An upscale erotic club. A gauntlet thrown down. A dare accepted. Eric's evening takes an unexpected detour. Eric/OC (Mature)
1. The Red Door

**Title:** You Could Be Mine  
**Author:** lachlanrose  
**Disclaimer:** Not mine. Never were. Never will be.  
**Feedback:** Sure, why not? I'm feeling lucky today. ;)  
**Summary:** An upscale erotic club. A gauntlet thrown down. A dare accepted. Eric's evening takes an unexpected detour.  
**Notes: **Confession time. I'm a hopeless Eric/Sookie shipper. Hopeless. That being said, variety is the spice of life. (Just because I love dark chocolate the best, doesn't mean I don't have a craving for toffee every now and again…) Wherever he is, there will always be women. Set ten years before book one. (Eric/OC) Mature themes.

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**You Could Be Mine**

_The way he touched her was slow and deliberate. It was easy to see they had history. This was not the first time or the second time or the hundredth time they'd pleasured each other. She was a strong lover, bold and sensual. He was physically larger, but her shamelessly enthusiastic response made her seem more his equal despite her diminutive stature. His style was showy; his full mouth lingered behind her knee, at the small of her back and at the nape of her neck. She was more direct. When she writhed for him, his flesh jumped, standing up thick and hard between them; pulsing. Her smile was not for show. She wanted him. They both made low murmurs of pleasure when she knelt between his spread thighs and took him between her full lips. He threw his head back and growled; she made a happy, greedy little sound and raked his flank with her nails. The resulting hiss of pleasure carried on still air, thick with the scent of sex and bloodlust. _

Eric watched the live carnal display with something less than his usual detachment. He had little use for modern pornography; what it made up for in convenience, it fell far short of in every other appreciable way. There was no physical energy. One couldn't feel the concussive force of flesh impacting flesh, nor sense the small vibrations of pleasure on the still night air. It was unremarkably devoid of all the rich sensory impact that imbued the visceral experience of watching the act in person; the rough burr of a quick gasp. The earthy, fecund scent of a woman's arousal, the darker predatory notes of a man in full rut. That small telltale shiver of female anticipation just before the upwelling of orgasmic pleasure.

That sublime moment of sweet surrender that all true predators can sense.

A flat celluloid image couldn't communicate urgency, couldn't telegraph the excitement of a full rush of blood under the skin or the true ecstasy of witnessing it rent so delectably under cock and fang. There was no resulting mouthwatering metallic tang to perfume the thick air, no appreciation for the rising bloodlust and carnal lust it could inspire in an audience. No, it was quite without those delicious layers he so thoroughly enjoyed savoring with all his heightened senses.

It wasn't something he partook of regularly, though when he did, he much preferred the full sensory experience of a live show... the prurience of the scene unfolding before him. The way it assaulted his senses. The growing lust in the crowd and the way their sharpening hunger beat at him.

To most of the patrons here tonight, it was a prelude to their own sexual adventures. Some liked to feed before arriving, so their own hunger did not distract or detract from the performance. Most liked to bring someone; a partner - or snack - along for the show (or avail themselves to those the house had on offer for that purpose). A few, like him, preferred to watch alone; enjoying the way it heightened his hunger and sharpened his predatory nature. There was no denying it made the hunt afterwards especially... _interesting_.

This place was his favorite haunt when just such a mood struck. The Red Door was an exclusive, upscale club hidden in the industrial district. It catered to his particular brand of patronage; intensely private, wealthy and quite without the pesky social mores that bound so much of the rest of society. The clientele wasn't exclusively supernatural, but the few humans who traveled in their circles didn't remain that way for long. Breathers were so annoyingly fragile.

Something dark and unsettling was moving in him tonight; a sensation he couldn't put a finger on, couldn't name, and couldn't quite ratchet down despite the millennia he'd spent mastering the iron control that usually kept such disturbing emotions in check. The night was young and full of possibilities... and he was open to them all.

He did not order a drink - breathing or otherwise. He wanted nothing to blunt the sharp edge of his hunger as he watched. He had been on edge, distracted for days and was more than slightly annoyed when the familiar tingle at the back of his mind finally registered in his consciousness.

Pamela.

His progeny and one-time lover. She was here, ensconced at a table on the far side of the room. She was not alone.

It wasn't her presence that bothered him, though a part of his mind recognized something that might have been annoyance; he hadn't wanted a witness to tonight's events, whatever they might be. It was of little consequence. It wasn't his first time here – or hers – they had, in the past, even partaken of the pleasures the club offered together a time or two. It was Pam's companion who gave him pause. Karina Mareva, one of his human employees, sat at her side, looking for all the world like she didn't find the sight before her alarming on a number of levels.

But then, who knew? Maybe she didn't. Ms. Mareva was something of an enigma to him even now, despite their history. She had alternatively intrigued and irritated him for a few years now. The first year she had worked behind the bar at his establishment until he realized her talents lay... elsewhere. She was intelligent, cold, bloodthirsty and frighteningly efficient. The following year she worked in the office. Now she worked for him personally, as an assistant to his day man, Bobby Burnham.

A sad state of affairs, that. She was actually better than his day man at most things, and certainly better on the eyes, however even in this 'modern' time, he still found a male assistant necessary. Surprise, surprise... humans were not as enlightened as they imagined themselves to be, and when all was said and done, most southern businessmen still wanted to shake a man's hand at the end of the day.

Still, there were doors that even his day man couldn't open, and places in this modern world to which Karina and her enviable skills were far more suited. She also handled his private affairs, and by that he meant his private _affairs_- not necessarily affairs of the heart, but affairs none the less. Wherever he found himself, there were always women. When he found Karina, she was at the beginning of working toward her law degree. The idea amused him to no end. He now had in his retinue a fledgling attorney (within striking distance of the bar exam) to handle the humans in his life. Not that there were many who mattered, but he had lived a long time and there was a scant handful he'd looked after through the years. Most were elderly now, but he had always been a fair employer and a generous lover, especially with those few mortals who had come close to touching his cold, dead heart. He had no idea what he was going to do when Karina was finished with school and ready to savor a larger slice of the world than this vibrant backwater. As forward thinking as he was, it was one change he had no intention of embracing with open arms.

He could still remember the day he'd hired her, a telling fact considering the number of interviews he'd been a party to over the centuries. In his experience, women with her looks; svelte and exotic with a long fall of shiny dark hair, did not apply to work behind the bar - dance in front of it perhaps – but they typically thought themselves above such a menial job. How curious that she had not.

'_Dancer auditions are tomorrow...'_ Pam had said as Karina walked in, clearly anticipating watching the dark haired beauty undulate and writhe for their entertainment. Or possibly just for her entertainment. Pam had always been a greedy bit of baggage. '_But perhaps... 'something'... can be arranged...'_

'_I'm not here to dance_,' she'd returned with a wry smile. '_One needs bigger tits to dance in this kind of place and clearly, I don't meet the job requirements.'_ Her small pert breasts fit her willowy, slender form to perfection – and she was not wrong, but her direct, tongue-in-cheek assessment of herself and his establishment had amused him. He did like to cut to the chase and appreciated that rare quality when he encountered it in humans.

'_Why are you here, then?'_ He'd asked, stirring and alert for the first time in hours.

'_I need a job. This one pays well enough and has good benefits, the most attractive being this position is the one that will make the most waves back home.' _Her slight foreign accent told him back home was far enough away not to be a problem_. _

'_If it's fame you're after, you won't find it here.'_ Gods save him from women who thought to gain notoriety through a passing association with vampires. They weren't quite publically out of the closet just yet, but soon. Their existence was not the closely guarded secret it had been for millenmia. This one was shrewd and obviously knew what he was, even if she didn't know who he was.

'_It's not fame I want. Just a paycheck.' _

Ah, revenge then. A cause near and dear to his own black heart. His blood was already rising. _Baggage!_ His brain had warned. It had won, at least for that moment. And for all the moments that had followed, too. Despite years of intermittent effort, he had never tasted her.

'_Oh, Eric... can we keep her?'_

'_Down, Pam.'_

Pam had pouted prettily. Karina had just stood there, watching him with an odd stillness in her bearing he found intriguing. At the time it had reminded him of a hare, run to ground and ready to burst into flight at any moment. How wrong he had been. For all her human frailty, Karina had always been more the predator than the prey, but then finding such women seemed to be a particular gift of his.

'_How do we know she can even pour a drink?_' Though he did enjoy a beautiful woman, a fine bottom line always beat a fine bottom.

Well… perhaps almost all the time.

'_Eric, if this girl doesn't have an intimate relationship with Jim, Jack and Johnny, I will eat my pumps_.'

Karina's eyes appraised Pam's stilettos. '_Now that really would be a travesty.'_ She fancied vintage handbags herself, but she had the occasional weakness for fierce shoes as well. '_Criminal. What would Louboutin say?'_

Pam had raised an eyebrow at him as if to say, _See?!_

'_Very well. Be here just before sundown. Ask for Ginger… and wear something…. appropriate.' _By that he'd meant something that wouldn't get her eaten alive_. _Bohemian, preppy co-ed presumably suited her collegiate needs, but at present she resembled a meal rather than an employee.

'_What do you think, Pam? Something….'_

'_Red?'_

'_No.'_ His sharp icy gaze travelled slowly over as surely as any touch and yet she retained that odd stillness even though he could hear the staccato burst of her racing pulse as his eyes touched her and lingered. She was not as unmoved as she would have him believe. Good. '_Hmm… something blue, I think.'_

He hadn't regretted hiring her. He had, however, regretted issuing the order for something blue. The cobalt lace-up corset and navy leather pants she'd worn that first night haunted him to this day.

And damned if she wasn't wearing a corset again tonight. He'd noted her affinity for them, in fact it had been impossible not to notice over the last few years, but he hadn't before seen the one she was wearing tonight. It was a deep rusty orange and set off her dusky skin and dark hair in a way that made his mouth water, though it was the drape and cut of her chocolaty satin skirt that had his fangs pushing at his lip.

That juxtaposition of rust and umber brought back long buried memories of communal bonfires on craggy wild beaches, orange flames licking up to the sky; the pop of sparks, the scent of smoke and tang of the sea, sweet _björr _and the warm spice of a woman's heated skin. It was the fire Karina reminded him of, not the women. Dangerous. Unpredictable. She was mercurial and illusive; a spark always underneath when he thought all was banked.

She was also somewhat defective, though in a way he found quite useful. There was a word humans used. Broken? She could be glamoured, but it didn't stick. He could force her to do his bidding, but some internal part of her was aware the entire time and she remembered every moment as soon as he withdrew his influence. A handy feature, given the circles she traveled in at his bequest. She'd put it down to a head injury she'd sustained as a child. He was not so sure, but there was little point in arguing the matter. It was what it was.

He watched her watch the naked couple on display writhe and moan. The male was taking his time as befit an erotic show of this nature, feasting between the female's legs. She was enjoying it, if the full flush of blood under her skin and slick glaze on her inner thigh was anything to judge by. He wondered what Karina thought of it. Did she find it arousing? If so, what part? The illicitness of watching the act itself? The venue? The audience? The man? The woman? He had been mildly surprised to find her tastes ran more toward women than men. She was always discrete, but she'd had a few lovers that he knew of over the last three years, though Pam had not been counted among them, much to her eternal displeasure. Karina was certainly a sexual creature, though not in the obvious way say, a fang banger, was. He'd never quite been able to pin her down or make her fit into any neat little box. She defied explanation. Perhaps that was part of the intrigue.

But Pam and Karina? His sharp mind was turning the pieces over, trying to make some sense out of what he was seeing. Wild girls' night out? Was his willful child once again pressing her suit again with his enigmatic assistant? He had warned her off, though Pam tended to take a rather flexible view of all but his most serious edicts. Perhaps a birthday then or some other celebration? This modern time seemed to make up holidays at the drop of a hat, all in the name of the almighty dollar. It wasn't the dollar he was opposed to. He had always been opportunistic, even back when he'd worn furs and swung a sword in that 'windy shithole' he'd grown up in. Pam did have a way with words. And no appreciation for the wild beauty of his homeland.

Such thoughts were for another night. He shook them away, pleased when he finally caught their gaze across the room. He was beside them before Karina's eyes had even widened. He did like to be direct.

"Ladies."

"Eric." Pam's voice was flat. She clearly was annoyed by his interruption, which made it all the more enjoyable.

Karina said nothing. If his presence during a live sex show made her uncomfortable, she didn't show it. The rhythm of her pulse had changed, as it usually did in his presence, and he smirked at her like he typically did. She rolled her eyes. It was an old game between them.

Eric addressed Pam, but it was Karina he watched. "Aren't you going to invite me to sit?"

He was leaning in close. Karina could smell the crisp night air on his clothes and failed to hide an involuntary shiver at his proximity. Something was different about her tonight. His smile sharpened.

"No." Pam's tone was petulant.

"_Pam_." He didn't raise his voice. The low soft growl left no room for argument.

"Oh please, do sit down…" Snippy now, despite the saccharine in her affected drawl. It amused him. He had retrieved an extra chair and his long body had unfolded into a position of casual repose before the words had finished leaving her mouth. "Our pleasure," Pam huffed tartly as he insinuated himself between the two women.

He held Karina's dark gaze. "No. The pleasure is mine."

A particularly deep groan came from the direction of the performers.

"And hers, apparently." There was an undercurrent of laughter in Karina's voice that almost hid the frisson of nervousness at his proximity. A crack in her armor? It was unusual. And impossibly intriguing. Even as a human, he'd always had trouble resisting when it came to sticking a wedge in a crack, either with finesse or brute force or both. He settled in deeper, curious.

Three pairs of eyes turned to the naked couple entwined on the dais. "So it would seem."

It was a quality show, meant to mislead and trick the mind as much as arouse the body. Only the very best could affect such a performance. It was a relatively new trend in live sex shows, mimicry meant to hide their true natures until it was unavoidable. It was almost impossible to tell which one of them was the vampire at first, part of the suspense for the audience, he supposed. The vampires would mimic normal human responses, feeding before a show to appear flushed and warm, forcing their chests to rise and fall in approximation of breathing, forgoing using their superior strength and speed. In turn, the humans would mimic the vampires; carefully schooling their features into that aloof mask, controlling the rise and fall of their chest to minimize the movement, meticulous grooming to appear flawless. Some used potions or charms to mask their scent. The best ones could even fake superhuman strength and speed by tricking the eye and making it appear as if their partner's abilities were their own. It culminated in an orgasm and bite, or several of each, of course…. At which point all bets were off. The audience wanted to see _all _the performers' talents, be they vampire, human, Were, shifter or other. Part of the thrill was experiencing that otherness.

There was titillation there. One of the last veils to be ripped away. Even few supernatural beings had been privy to the private matters of creatures most humans didn't even know existed. Letting others see the bloodlust, seeing the blood run or their eyes turn a round, glowing, amber. Shifting during sex wasn't as common, but where the aim was to shock and arouse and thumb a nose at the establishment, there were always a few wild creatures game to put on a show. Even the secretive witches and vain Fey had been known to make an appearance a time or two in recent history. It was all part of the intrigue. You never knew what was going to come out of the box.

Sometimes the audience clapped at the moment of revelation if the performers were especially clever at deception. The pair before them was good but not flawless. Still, it wasn't easy to tell which one was the vampire, especially since both of them were of some undeterminable gorgeous racial mix that had resulted in pale green eyes, dark kinky hair and miles of supple mocha skin. They were flawless.

"It's hard to tell, isn't it?" murmured Pam finally.

"No."

It came from both Eric and Karina simultaneously. Their eyes met, bright with amusement.

"Do tell." Pam sounded some blend of curious and put out.

"Ladies first." Eric raised an eyebrow, curious about Karina's answer.

"He has goose bumps." A human response.

"Ahhh…" said Pam.

"So?" said Eric. "That doesn't take much effort." He pushed the sleeve of his jacket up and closed his eyes, running a hand down the back of his neck slowly. He moved imperceptibly – more a shudder than a shiver – and gooseflesh rose on his arm. His eyes opened. Karina's fingertip hovered a hairsbreadth above his arm. He could feel her warmth and then she refocused on Pam and pulled back. His eyes narrowed briefly as he read the nuances in that. Karina was, for some unexplainable reason, more receptive tonight than she had ever been towards him, though she clearly found Pam's presence inhibiting.

"You never taught me to do that." Pam's voice was a touch indignant. Passing for human wasn't as important as it once had been, but it could still be useful in the right circumstance.

"I have a millennia of such knowledge to impart. Pace yourself." He merely shrugged. "Besides, what would we talk about in five hundred years if I taught you everything I know now?" That made even the two typically stoic vampires, smile.

He turned his eyes back on Karina, who seemed to have withdrawn back into herself slightly. He wanted to draw her out. "So, any other observations?" He inclined his head to the dais.

"Well, yes."

Two pair of predatory eyes fixed upon her. For a brief instant, Eric's eyes met Karina's and the heat he saw there rocked him back. She had never returned his interest so openly. He wasn't above exploiting the opportunity, though he did wonder what had changed. Why now? Why tonight? Why this place? He found the uncertainty unsettling.

"Simple." She said. "Look at his heart beat."

Both vampires made a small noise of disbelief. "Do you expect me to believe you can see the pulse beating in his throat at this distance, in a darkened club while they are lit from above with a spotlight?" He was mildly annoyed, having expected a better answer, or at least one outside the realm of the ridiculous.

"Of course not. Don't be absurd." She was only human. There was nothing special or deadly about her senses, except perhaps for her acerbic tongue. "Look at his cock." Her voice didn't waver but there was a delightful flush creeping up her chest.

"If I must," huffed Pam. Her interests ran the other way. Eric said nothing.

"Every time they part, it bobs in time with his heartbeat." She looked again and her slender fingers softly tapped out the rhythm on the glossy tabletop.

"She's got you there!" Pam laughed. "Unless you intend to show us you can fake that as well?"

He seemed to consider that. It was a simple matter. One he'd mastered centuries ago. "Maybe I will."

Karina had color in her cheeks but the look in her eye seemed to imply she wouldn't stop him if he tried.

All the air seemed to have been sucked from the table.

Eric spoke first. "Pam, run along."

"You have got to be kidding."

He didn't even turn his head to look at her.

"Now."


	2. The Spotlight

A strangled hush fell over the table in the wake of Pam's frosty departure. Eric's long fingers carefully lifted Karina's glass, swirling the green liquid before holding it under his nose. His senses were such that so a close examination wasn't necessary, but the scent of her lips lingered on the rim and he wasn't about to pass that up. He inhaled, feeling the first sharp pricks of heat beginning to gather between his legs.

"Absinthe." Quite a nice label if he wasn't mistaken. He hadn't had alcohol in a thousand years, but he was the proprietor of a prosperous bar, and as such he prided himself on the ability to know and assess wine and spirits. As a buyer, it also made him damned hard to cheat, if one was so stupidly inclined.

She nodded. "It's a bit embarrassing, to tell the truth. I went through a rebellious period in my youth."

His eyes were bright. "Don't we all? Mine lasted a good three hundred years."

When she laughed, her small breasts looked spectacular pushing against the top of her tightly laced corset. "Well, mine was as a _teenager_. You know that old myth about the hazards of drinking the Green Fairy?" His look was blank. He was always a mystery. She never knew when she'd uncover some gap in his knowledge of more modern human history. The random areas of his expertise (base jumping- renewable energy- astronomy- whale preservation- video games) was as surprising as the places he had understandable gaps (pop culture catch phrases, clothing fads, certain edible epicurean delights). One man couldn't know all of the history of the world for the past thousand years, though he certainly seemed to make an effort.

"In my world, drinking a Green Fairy is far more hazardous for them than for me." His expression was positively wolfish. Her throaty laughter rewarded him with another view of her delectable breasts.

"Well, in this world, aside from being the historically preferred drink of the bohemian counterculture and therefore condemned by social conservatives, it was also thought to contain dangerous psychoactive compounds."

"How typically puritanical." He sighed. "So you, in all your teenage wisdom, poured as much as you could down your throat?" The dig about disapproving social conservatives resonated and he filed that away for later. Her father, most likely. She wouldn't be the first underage girl to get back at daddy in such a way. It made him curious about what the man had done to her that had lit the fires of revenge so brightly and at such a tender age- and that interest was a rare thing indeed. Was he in danger of caring about someone other than himself? He was surprised to find he was on a more slippery slope than he'd first imagined.

"Sad, I know… but the real joke was on me. By the time I figured out it was just a drink, nothing more, nothing less, I'd already acquired a taste for it."

A deeply erotic groan interrupted their conversation. His eyes darted to the spectacle on the dais; the male was feasting between the female's legs. His mouth was wet. She was close to orgasm.

His lips twitched. "I know just what you mean…"

Karina shuddered visibly at his erotically charged words.

They both watched as the female began to tremble, her body desperately searching for the firm unrelenting pressure of her partner's mouth.

"I could make you feel that way," he breathed softly into her ear.

Like he wasn't already?

"You sound sure of yourself." She could feel her heart beating in her throat. Her voice was barely even.

"I am. I could do it with both hands tied behind my back."

That image - him pleasuring her to orgasm without the use of his hands, especially with such a vocal visual to hand - had a surprisingly powerful effect on them both. In moments he was obscenely erect, the male counterpart to the shocking rush of lush moisture between her thighs.

When she recovered her powers of speech, she raised an eyebrow. "Does that mean you want me to tie you up?"

His warm laughter was unexpected and loud. Heads turned. "Only you would ask me that." His mirth faded as suddenly as it had begun. His eyes were icy and penetrating now, pinning her into the simple black chair. "At the risk of ruining what promises to be one of the best evenings I have had in decades, why the sudden change?"

He was certain she knew he'd ask. His habit of identifying and understanding just those sorts of details was one of the reasons he'd lived so long. He didn't miss much… but then, neither did she. For a human. She had come to know him quite well in the last few years, not with the sexual intimacy of a lover, but she was familiar with the intimate routines of his day-to-day existence. She knew where he slept, what and _who_ he ate, the hours he worked… the way he spent his downtime… even a few of his more embarrassing hobbies.

"Does it really matter?"

"I don't want it to." A typical Eric answer. It didn't mean it wouldn't, though. They sat in silence until he stroked the inside of her wrist softly with one blunt fingertip. "Tell me." It was somewhere in that ambiguous place between an order and an inquiry.

"My roommate Liz, remember her?" His look was blank. "Blonde. Big tits? Took Pam for a dirty whirl in your office chair last year at the Halloween party?"

"Ah, yes. The naughty nun. Now I recall." He barely remembered her. Karina had come as Princess Leia in the infamous slave costume that year. It was the first time he'd seen so much of her skin. He'd barely restrained himself from tasting her that night... right up until she'd called him Jabba. Her choice of costume hadn't seemed quite so amusing after that. He wasn't sure what unnerved him more; the comparison to Jabba, the nefarious crime lord with a taste for dubious carnal pleasure, or the fact that she knew about his secret love affair with classic sci-fi flicks.

"She found out she was pregnant a few weeks ago. Unplanned, of course." Outside of her dazzling career track, Liz never planned anything. He nodded. "She was still deciding what to do when she lost the baby." The sting of the loss was still fresh. Liz was devastated, and Karina by extension. She shrugged slightly, sipping her drink. Her reasons for keeping him at arm's length had felt pretty small after that. "She's okay… but that kind of thing changes everything and everyone. You're never the same again."

It had been a long time since he'd allowed himself to think about children - in any capacity. The loss of some things were so painful that even a thousand years didn't make them any easier to bear. "So you decided to celebrate life by courting the undead?"

"Only you would ask me that." Her eyes were still shining, but the somber moment had passed.

"Only you would consider baiting me a celebration of life. Most consider it suicide." He paused. "Are you not afraid of me?"

"Of course I am. I'm not a fool." That seemed to placate him somewhat, at least until she finished speaking. She had seen what horrors he was capable of. But she also knew him and his child, Pam, and was known to his maker, Godric. Eric pretended not to care and perhaps he didn't most of the time, but the few bonds he had ran deep. She was also the one who managed the trust funds for the descendents of his loyal servants from eons ago, as well as the one who sent flowers to a handful of his old lovers' graves on the anniversary of their passing. He could be cold, selfish, pigheaded and unconscionably, deliberately cruel, but he was also fair, loyal, witty and possessed unfounded depths of courage and grit. "But I know you, too... or at least as much of you as you ever let anyone close to you see." She could tell he was going to make her pay for that confession. She wondered if he'd rather die the true death than be emotionally available to anyone ever again. Even the hint of it soured his mood.

He scowled. They sat in silence, watching the erotic performance as it began its final crescendo. There was a gasp as the male hilted and his muscled buttocks clenched and flexed as he rose and fell powerfully between the female's parted legs. It was a welcome distraction.

Indignant anger burned bright and hot. That alone should have been enough to warn him that he was on the edge of something dangerous, but he was too involved now to distance himself properly. Fuck discipline. Some things were too powerful to resist. So she thought she knew him, did she? Perhaps she'd gleaned a bit more than he'd previously realized, but he was a dark horse at the best of times. "Would you like to know _more_?"

"How much more?" She was breathless. The offer was clearly an erotic invitation to know the more primal, carnal side of his nature. The heat in his gaze was incandescent.

"As much as you dare." He knew her well. She could not resist a gauntlet being thrown down, especially when the only competition was her own limits. He'd never met someone so hell bent on besting herself.

She considered that a moment, her head cocked. That was one of the reasons she intrigued him so. She was wild and unpredictable, and yet almost never foolhardy. She owned her decisions, good and bad. If she lept, even headlong into certain danger, it was because she'd made the conscious decision to be there. Forget being a male- or even a vampire. How could the Viking in him not admire that?

"Bring it on, Northman." Even the final moments of the erotic show wasn't enough to intrude into the charged moment. The female bit deeply. The man on the dais came hard and loud. The sound registered, but neither of them turned to watch. "I could make you feel that way," she breathed recklessly, parroting his earlier taunt. Smart? No. ….but definitely satisfying. The look on his face was worth the price she knew she'd pay.

His fangs were showing.

Uh-oh. She had clearly pushed him too far. People did not play a game of one-upmanship with him and walk away unscathed.

"Then how lucky that you are to have that chance sooner rather than later, lover."

He stood, unfolding his long frame to stand hawkishly above her, a wraith in black, and wrapped one large hand around the top of the chair he'd just vacated. He turned, moving slowly, dragging the chair behind him as he went. The screech of the metal legs on the bare concrete was horrifying obtrusive in the dark, womblike atmosphere of the club. Her ears rang, and that was without enhanced senses. Several of the patrons glared and hissed. Some howled. A flutter went through the room.

A sickening feeling of dread spiraled through her, touching off the heat gathering between her legs and lighting something terrifying that she thought might never go out.

Eric's steps never wavered. When he put the chair in the empty circle in the middle of the room, he'd ensured every eye in the place would be on him. He spun the chair and settled it firmly, dropping into it carelessly, his demeanor casually arrogant. He caught the eye of someone known to him in the shadows and barked an order in German. The glowing lights highlighting the spent couple snapped off abruptly, plunging the room in darkness.

For a moment, the inky blackness was terrifyingly oppressive as Karina realized the enormity of the challenge he'd just tossed down. A new single spotlight appeared, illuminating the lone menacing figure seated like a king. He seemed a sovereign holding court… or a judge about to pass sentence. Against the deep black of his clothes, the intense light on his alabaster skin and golden hair made him appear otherworldly; a god among mortals.

And he was waiting for _her_.

* * *

Author's note: So there's the gauntlet thrown down, Viking style.

Will she? Won't she?

Would you? ;)


	3. The North Star

The harsh exclamations and disapproving murmurs of the crowd became a thundering silence punctuated by the odd cat-call and intermixed with yips of surprised delight and piercing whistles of approval as the audience realized a new impromptu game was afoot. Their stares ranged from openly curious to vulgar anticipation.

Who better than a true predator to recognize the scent of blood in the water? This was why so many patrons came to the Red Door. One never knew what might happen. It probably wasn't the first time something like this had occurred in recent memory, but the man alone made it a noteworthy occasion.

He didn't come often enough to be a regular or even to be recognized as an infrequent patron, but even in this mixed crowd, there were those who knew him as the authority in this Area. It was rare for a Sheriff to intentionally draw that much personal attention. He was playing a dangerous game, but she had pushed him when he was already feeling reckless.

He wondered what her next move would be. She was still frozen in the chair, alone at a table on the edge of the darkness. Perhaps she was rethinking her rash words? He doubted it. She'd already decided to play the game, whatever stakes he set. She wouldn't back down now. If he knew her, and he did… she was gathering herself for something he suspected he was probably going to enjoy far too much. At least he hoped so. In his fantasies, and there were _many_, she never disappointed.

She stood regally and called out an order of her own in German that was more mellifluous and less gutturally accented than his own. A driving music suddenly filled his ears. Rammstein. His expression was positively predatory. She walked slowly into the circle of light, pulling the pins from her hair and dropping them like glittering breadcrumbs as she went.

He looked her up and down as she approached. He knew she'd been raised abroad, but it wasn't often he was caught off guard. "You're full of surprises tonight,_ fraulein_. I don't recall _that_ on your CV." She'd only listed French. He also suspected Italian… and now that he knew she had an ear for languages, he wondered how much she understood of his private conversations with Pam in Swedish. _Shit._

"Oh, you have no idea what I'm capable of, cowboy."

His eyes widened slightly.

She took a step closer, appearing emboldened for a moment, until he caught the wild flutter of her heart. She was poised on the edge of flight. Most of her wanted to run. A part of her wanted to throw herself on him and beg him to take this somewhere less public… but she'd made up her mind and bold as brass she stood here, shaking like a leaf, but standing her ground all the same. Even if she could dismiss the physical, both the terrified part that wanted to flee and the carnal part that wanted to engage, it was her indomitable will that held her rooted to the spot.

She took another step and he held up his hand, twirling his finger in the universal 'give us a spin' gesture. It made her blood boil even as a new flood trickled from that throbbing place between her legs. The hint of fang he showed her said he knew it, too. Smug bastard. She spun slowly for his pleasure, her mind racing almost as fast as the blood beneath her skin. She was determined. He would get his. Like for like. Even if she knocked him down a peg or two, he would win in the end, of course… unless the world suddenly tilted on its axis, but refusing to play the game was simply out of the question.

Now that the moment was finally upon them, lust rose sharply, threatening to burn them both to ash. She was magnificent, standing before him like a Valkyrie, haughty and proud. Her hair was an inky cloud around her shoulders, the perfect inviting backdrop for her long slender neck. She burned for him. He could smell it, could see it in her fierce gaze and in the way her body moved restlessly under her clothes. It was almost impossible to stay seated, but he was long used to waiting for what he wanted…. And tonight what he most wanted was her.

It was all she could do to keep herself from falling on him in a frenzy. She wanted nothing more than to straddle his hips and ride him hard. Her thighs quivered with it. She forced herself to stand there instead, appraising him as he'd done to her. There was a smattering of appreciative noises and a few more open guffaws from the crowd at her audacity. She ignored them all.

His heavy, black, lug-sole boots were planted firmly on the floor. His legs, encased in black jeans, were casually spread. It was impossible to miss the obscene bulge between them. A tailored black leather jacket covered his wide shoulders and thick arms. A black singlet was beneath. He was wearing jewelry tonight, a few heavy rings on his fingers and something on a chain around his neck. She couldn't see what it was. It hung under his shirt and she suddenly shivered, thinking of how it would bruise them both when they were finally grinding together.

Even if he wasn't the Sheriff with a certain position and appearance to uphold, he wasn't about to get up and twirl for her so she didn't even try to make him. She would only lose face when he refused to comply with her demands. Instead she walked slowly around the chair, eyeing him up from all angles as he'd done to her. Tit for tat. The sharp click of her nude peep-toe pumps marked her slow egress. The movement, and its meaning, wasn't lost on him. There was a tick in his jaw and a low growl in his throat by the time she had stepped back into the charged space between his spread legs. Still, it was hard not to admire her pluck. Even Pam had never brazenly eyed him in public like a side of beef. He almost laughed. If she was like this here, imagine what she'd be like in private? His hips shifted infinitesimally in the chair.

She noticed.

She had forgotten the audience, or rather they had ceased to matter. There was only him and the raging lust that was quickly outstripping their thin veneer of control.

He crooked two autocratic fingers, beckoning her closer. She moved as if on an invisible string. "Boo," he said softly, chuckling when she jumped. She sucked the offending digits into her mouth and he hissed sharply when she bit down hard. He jerked his hand away and tutted, licking his stinging knuckles while he watched her mouth. The world seemed to stop and then to implode violently as he quickly shifted; a blur too quick for her eyes to follow.

His big hands were suddenly at the back of her knees, then skating slowly up under her skirt and over the back of her thighs to the soft swell of her hips. She shivered. His hands were cool, though the look in his eyes was anything but. He didn't delve between her legs to feel the proof of her desire or push a long thick finger inside to claim her property of the Northman. They were both far past such simple games tonight. He removed his hands from beneath her skirt. A scrap of lace came away with them. He paused, amusement spiking through the lust for a brief moment as he stroked the slippery gusset with his thumb. The lacy bit of lingerie was the same shade of atomic orange as her neon pedicure. Tucking them in his pocket, he shamelessly licked his finger and pulled her closer still.

"Delicious." The soft word was barely audible between them. Whatever game he was playing, the Northman never let anyone see all his cards.

"Happy Samhain," she murmured, straddling him.

Wasn't that the truth? The end of the lighter half of the year and the beginning of the darker half. How apt. He had the sudden unwelcome thought that half a year wouldn't be nearly enough time to savor her.

Her dark hair formed a cocoon around them. One zip and he was free. A little frisson of fear went through her. He was as blessed as she remembered. She'd mistakenly interrupted him a time or two _in flagarante_ over the years, and he'd brazenly flirted with her even then, wet and glistening with another woman's pleasure. Cocky son of a bitch. She wasn't smiling now though. This time he was erect for her and it made all the difference.

Without warning, she sat down hard, impaling herself. A sharp gasp left her lips; a soft grunt from his. He was large and she had not been mindful of his girth. There was pain and a stinging stretch but the sensation of finally having what had so long been denied blinded them both to everything else. She was so hot inside; a blast furnace. The tight, fiery embrace nearly undid him; that sublime moment of finally possessing that which you have dreamed about for so long.

The audience was silent, enraptured. This was two beings in the grip of a fierce, vital passion. It wasn't an act or a performance. Her skirt was long and hid everything. There was almost no flesh on display to speak of, and yet it was somehow both more intimate and more erotic than the previously graphic display had been. This was real… and there was no stopping it.

She rose up over him, the long fall of her hair hiding both their faces. He kissed her then, brutally and with a feral primacy. The room spun. She started. His lips and tongue were cool, as was the impossibly thick stand of flesh stretching her. That awareness only made her feel hotter. She was aflame, an inferno of nerve endings and synapses firing wildly. The sensation of sharp points of his fangs on her tongue was indescribably erotic; each little prick of discomfort seemed to drive her higher. The hard knot of his necklace was digging into her breastbone. There was pain. The best kind… but she'd always been aware that there would be a price for knowing him this way.

His hands were in her hair now, fisted at her nape, holding her to him as they ground together wildly. He began drawing back her hair, baring her throat. She felt his lips on her neck and the scrape of his fangs as his mouth opened and he prepared to bite.

She froze.

"Stop!" He went still under her, more from shock than from her urgently whispered command. Even now she wasn't begging.

Glorious.

She buried her face against his throat. "Don't let them see..." Pitched low, her quiet exclamation wasn't without power, though there was deference now. She had reached her limit. He had won. Something in him softened. He has been expecting exultation not this strange tenderness.

A hot stick of surprise burned in his chest, along with a deeper harder to name emotion that might have been satisfaction. It pleased him. For all her bravado, she was more innocent than she'd first appeared. He wouldn't have been interested otherwise. She was not a tart or a fang banger and the only reason she'd taken things so far in a public venue was because he'd goaded her into it.

He continued to gather her hair until he'd capture the long dark fall in one fist, baring her neck to the room before kissing her there for effect, ignoring the calls of encouragement from the audience.

Lifting his mouth, he looked out at the room and raised an arched brow in censure. "She's shy..."

He could feel her tremble with anger. She thought he was making fun... and perhaps for a moment, he had been. And then in a sickening rush of vampiric speed, he scooped her up and they vanished, leaving nothing behind but a few fluttering tablecloths and a handful of glittering hair pins. The audience protested, but only for a moment. There was always something new to titillate their jaded senses, though most were astute enough to realize they'd just caught a glimmer of something real in a world of shadows and mystery.

He didn't take her far. The fire in his blood was burning too hotly to be ignored. When he slowed, they were alone outside, in a darkened alley full of wooden pallets, industrial refuse, hunks of twisted metal, and the odd illegally parked car. The world lurched alarmingly. The air was crisp and cold, but smelled fresh with a metallic undercurrent.

Pulling off his jacket, he pushed her hands into the sleeves impatiently before roughly hauling her up against the coarse bricks and impaling her. "Watch me," he hissed. He was much too far gone to stop, but it was his one concession to his mortal lover's fragility. The full length and breadth of his mercy had been reached. He fully intended for her to bleed for him this night, though not from having her tender back scraped raw. "Watch!" Desire roared through him when she caught his icy gaze instead of looking down to watch his wild thrusts into her lush body. She _got_ him. And it blew his mind. In that moment she was with him in a way that went far beyond cocks and fangs and fragile human bodies.

She was not worried about being disturbed. Monstrous dark things lived in the shadows, but he was the blackest of them all. Anything that wanted her was going to have to go through him first, and the look on his face told her he wasn't about to let a single thing get in his way now that he had her right where he wanted.

"I want to taste you," he growled against her mouth. He felt her hand try to slip down to where they were intimately joined, presumably to let him taste her essence from her fingertips. He smiled inwardly at her naiveté. He wished to taste all of her eventually, of course, but he had been speaking of the life force flowing with such vitality under her skin. He touched his open mouth to her neck and she understood.

He was old enough to not need much blood to sustain him.

He took far more than that. She was intoxicating.

Her orgasm was wild, her hands gripping him tightly as she spasmed on the thick shaft pinning her to the wall. His head swam. She tasted potent and wild and vital and somehow different, though in a way he didn't want to examine too closely. He was tightly wound; all the energy in his body seemed to be gathering at the base of his spine and between his firmly planted legs.

The time for waiting was over.

Using the hard edge of one of the heavy rings on his fingers, he opened a small cut on his chest, offering himself to her.

It was a precarious moment. He was exposed, physically and emotionally. In his experience, humans typically wanted to be bitten rather than do the biting. Thousands of years of cultural conditioning made the thought of ingesting blood, especially from the source, distasteful.

He was pleased but not completely surprised when she embraced the moment without hesitation, her pouty mouth drawing on him, accepting the dark sacrament he'd offered. The intensity of his orgasm took him by surprise. It had been decades, perhaps centuries, since he'd shared his blood with a woman in this way. The ecstasy was shattering. The rhythmic, primal pumping sent fire licking up his spine. It was intensely satisfying. A fierce growl. A scalding gush. His essence filling her. Her thighs quivering against his hips. His knees sagged as she wrung the last agonizing shudders of searing pleasure from his lean body.

Eric lifted his head and her eyes, wide and dark with satiation, met his. He kissed her tenderly, tasting himself on her lips, a curiously novel experience that made something inside his chest lurch alarmingly.

Her cheeks were red, her face a picture of disheveled confusion; his usually unflappable assistant was adorably out of sorts. He was utterly charmed.

"I'm not dreaming, am I? Did we really just do that?"

"What? The eye fucking? The sex? Or the blood exchange?" He didn't remind her they were still technically 'doing it'. She was presently impaled and her feet had yet to touch the ground.

At his smug expression, a little of her bravado came back, no doubt given a healthy shot in the arm from powerful effects of his ancient blood. "Well you did challenge me to know as much of you as I dared..."

"That I did." And she had not disappointed.

She wriggled experimentally in his firm grasp. He groaned softly. She grinned. "In that case, I'm still feeling rather daring..." He let her legs down gently and slowly uncoupled from her, shivering as he withdrew. She winced, smoothing her skirt back down as he zipped up. She kept the jacket. "...but this time I think I'll dare you to find a more appropriate venue with a bed and candles and privacy. I'm in the mood to explore the icy North..." They'd only had the smallest taste of each other. There was so much more...

"Bring it on." His expression was positively wicked. He pressed her hand to the front of his pants with a playful leer. "I can say with certainty that the North _Star_ is an excellent navigational landmark. You can't miss it. I won't let you lose your way..."

"I choose my own way." He pulled her close, tucking her into the protection of his body as they walked into the shadows. "Though I can't help but wonder how you are with the rest of the stars...?"

"Any one in particular?" Cassiopeia came immediately to mind. He told himself it was because it was November, a time when she was most visible, and not because she was the Queen of the Sky and pointed at the North Star.

"Venus seems an appropriate place to start. Though I suspect you're quite familiar navigating that particular landmark."

"Quite." Their eyes met. "Ah, Venus. The dazzling evening star that outshines all else in the sky." He touched her cheek tenderly and for an unguarded moment, his expression was soft. "She lives in the House of Virgo, the Virgin, you know."

Her laugh was husky and warm. "Not for long..."

The night welcomed them into her embrace.

And the stars glittered on.

* * *

Author's note: This is my first True Blood story. I'd love to know what y'all thought. The good... the bad... the ugly. ;)


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